Just a little blog about me and mine.

Kitchen Kitch November 3, 2008

Since cleaning out my Aunt J and Uncle Jack’s house after their deaths, and helping my family with 2 grandmas and their Great Depression-era tendencies to hoard things (Nanny had a drawer full of Popsicle sticks and we’ve only just scratched the surface of Ma’s house but found enough peas in the freezer to feed us all for years), I’ve made a commitment to not leave a mess to the lucky person is that has to clean out my things when I die. I will not be that person with 40 years of newspapers stacked in my living room (I already have 40 year old Life magazines in my living room, so I know I’m living on the edge and full of irony). Sadly, my anti-pack rat tendencies don’t apply to the kitchen. I have my Aunt J’s china and silver stored at my parent’s house for now (the crystal is at my house though, just waiting for a fancy party), but I somehow managed to rearrange my kitchen cabinets last night to accommodate a set of dishes that belonged to my grandmother.

I love this pattern, and I’m now the heiress to 8 dinner plates, 3 medium bowls, 8 small cereal bowls with cool handles, 1 vegetable bowl, a 2-section vegetable bowl, coffee creamer, sugar bowl, and 9 coffee cups and saucers. The pattern is called Autumn Leaves and it came out in the mid-50’s. The same company that put these out did a few patterns with those cool starbursts, but I can’t imagine my grandma ever owning those. I’d like to think I’m hip enough for Starbursts, but I’m more of an Autumn Leaves kind of gal.

In addition to these new dishes, one part of my kitchen collection that I particularly like is a mixture of serving bowls from different family members: a yellow melamine serving bowl from a set of dishes Nanny used when my mom was a kid and a serving bowl from my Aunt J and Uncle Jack’s everyday dishes. We have other old family items displayed (Coca-Cola trays, a bowl PL’s dad gave his aunt many years ago, egg beaters, a sewing machine, and now a butter churn that my dad spent many evenings using) but I love having the dishes and utensils to use everyday. I also have a small Club Aluminum dutch oven collection going, with a red one (belonging to Nanny), a yellow one, or should I say harvest gold (Aunt J), and now a white one (Ma). My mom has the brown set, which still make fine pots of chili and vegetable soup.

We also brought home some other things that somehow fit into our drawers and cabinets: PL finally has a deviled egg plate (she’s turning into a fine Southern lady) and we picked out some other utensils and Tupperware that will be useful even if they aren’t particularly old or memorable. So, despite my best efforts, I’m well on my way to being the old lady with tons of antiques and kitch in her house, but I promptly throw out all newspapers and still only have the 1 cat.